Atheists err when asking for material evidence to prove God's existence

[mustangguy289]

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As a general rule, most atheists would state that, from a biological perspective, we exist to pass on our genetic material to the next generation in order to proliferate our own genes.

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So now even the Atheists are against homosexual marriage!


Please don't take this seriously. It is merely a smartass remark.

[jdgregory84]

Mankind's attempts to pigeonhole God into his own rules and limited understanding will be forever a failure.

Praise organized religion!

[Maddhattter]

Fair enough...I ask cause I've never known anyone like that and I like learning things I know little about

No need to explain your questions. I was just trying to be clear about not being able to speak for all atheists. If you have any other questions, I will continue answer them to the best of my ability.

[Gqsmash]

Fair enough...I ask cause I've never known anyone like that and I like learning things I know little about

[Maddhattter]

I can generalize the answers to these questions, but first I need to point out that the answers can vary greatly from atheist to atheist. Atheism only covers one issue, and one issue alone. It is a stance on a truth claim. It is the position that one feels that the theist has not met their burden of proof in regards to their theistic claim. Any other belief, outside of that, atheists can believe anything else. There are atheistic religions, such as some sects of Hindu and Buddhism, there are also atheists who believe aliens created life on earth, such as the Raëlians.

Now, to answer your questions the best I can.

Not in a rude way but in a atheist point of view are people just here for no reason or is there a point to life?

As a general rule, most atheists would state that, from a biological perspective, we exist to pass on our genetic material to the next generation in order to proliferate our own genes.

From a more general "What is the point of my life?", most atheists would probably state that there is no external point. We accept that we make our own. We find meaning in our lives, typically in our friends and family. Our husband's/wife's/children's/friend's happiness and safety give purpose to many. Others see duty, like the military, or charity, like Doctors without Borders as their purpose. Still, others see reincarnation into a better being to be their purpose.

And does one believe in anything after death?

Again, I can only give you fairly generalized answers as atheists can believe a great many things about what occurs at or after death.

I think most would state that our individual existence ends at brain death. From there, our body will feed other life, which in turn will feed other life. We simply will not be able to be aware of it.

As stated earlier, there are atheistic religions. It's my understanding that Scientology is atheistic. Mind you, I am no expert on Scientology. Whatever they believe happens after death is, to my understanding, atheistic. Again, atheism only covers one issue; the belief of a god/gods. Anything other than that is fair game.

[Maddhattter]

There will be a day when it is proven that there is a God or not.

Incorrect. It cannot be proven, in any traditional sense, that something does not exist. Only that the likelihood of something existing is too small to consider it a viable option.

Should it be proven that a god/gods exists, I will be more than willing to admit that it does/they do. It would not necessarily follow that I would be willing to worship said entity/entities.

I just hope and pray each one of you is on the right side.

So, if you are wrong, you hope and pray that a god/gods do not exist? That would make the whole praying thing kinda pointless, even from your implied position.

Why do athiest spend so much time trying to disprove something that they believe does not exist?

We, as a general rule, don't. If you'd have taken the time to read my posts in this very thread, you'd already know this. As I've already stated, there is nothing to "disprove" until the theists can provide proof. Until then, no one can even attempt to "disprove" anything. Not to mention the fact that nobody can "disprove" anything with certainty. No matter how crazy the option, it is still a possibility. We could be delivered by storks rather than birthed from a womb. Even though all of the current evidence supports the live birth theory, there may be evidence that can overturn that theory. The chance of that happening, however, is so astronomically remote that it is not worth consideration.

I would also like to note that you shouldn't confuse verbosity with effort. None of the posts in this thread have taken much, if any, real effort on my part. Nor are they any attempt to "disprove" anything. All I've done in this thread is deconstruct fallacious arguments and pointed out some of their flaws.

[Gqsmash]

Not in a rude way but in a atheist point of view are people just here for no reason or is there a point to life? And does one believe in anything after death?

[racrguy]

Why do athiest spend so much time trying to disprove something that they believe does not exist?

Nobody in this thread has tried to disprove god, I've personally never tried to disprove god, and I'm sure maddhattter has done the same. Keep in mind, calling bullshit on your reasons for belief is not disproving something, it's calling bullshit.

[mustangguy289]

Why do athiest spend so much time trying to disprove something that they believe does not exist?

[mustangguy289]

There will be a day when it is proven that there is a God or not. I just hope and pray each one of you is on the right side.

[Maddhattter]

Very interesting thread! That's what faith is for..to put it where you want!

Religious faith is, by definition, belief without evidence. Which is my exact problem with faith. Without proof, believing in something is pure gullibility. Faith is not a road to truth.

Does this make people with religious faith wrong? No, it does not. It is possible that they are correct. It's also possible that the stork hypothesis is correct, or the demon hypothesis for illnesses. Science does not prove anything definitively. It cannot, and does not, rule out the possibility that new evidence will not arise in the future to overturn a previous theory. Without support for a claim, however, there is no reason to believe it.

Sure, you can have faith. You can have faith in whatever you want. I've no interest in removing someone's right to have faith, nor could I if I wanted. There's just no reason to take that belief seriously, due to its reliance on faith. At least, not until it can be shown to be likely, let alone true. Of course, then it wouldn't be faith.

Ultimately isn't it just another investment?

Going by your investment analogy, it is the worst type of investment you can make. It gives no evidence that it even can provide a return, it consistently asks for more investment, and most religions demand that you try and get your friends and family involved as well. The better analogy, as it is more accurate, would be a multi-level marketing scheme like Amway.

Ultimately, yes. Faith can be seen as an investment. It would just, by all evidence, be a terrible one.

[Gqsmash]

Very interesting thread! That's what faith is for..to put it where you want! Ultimately isn't it just another investment?

[Maddhattter]

None of your above replies make sense, especially the liberal oe, sine I did not call you a liberal. ]I stated that the arguement you are making sounds a lot like a liberals.

Ok. So, then I've misunderstood. You said that liberals make arguments using logic, reason and attempt to use well defined terms in order to maintain accuracy and avoid misunderstanding. I'll accept that charge.

There is no discussion with you.

Considering that we've had a back and forth thus far, we've been having a discussion, regardless of your claims.

Also, I resent your tone and arrogant insults against my "beliefs".

Your resentment has no bearing on whether or not you defined your position as unreasonable and illogical. That is how stupid is defined. No arrogance is present, I'm only working with the attributes you've given something that you have not demonstrated exists and words as they are defined.

If you want to be resentful that you called your belief stupid(I only articulated it), be my guest.

Our culture is based upon them.

Unsupported assertion. Christian culture is the only culture defined by Christianity. So, this claim is axiomatic and carries no relevance to the rest of the thread or conversations. It will continue to be irrelevant until someone attempts to assert that Christian culture is not defined by Christianity.

When you want to have a discussion that is intelligent and respectful, I am all ears.

You've not demonstrated how I've not been either. So, there is no reason to assume that the qualifiers do not already exists within this conversation.

Thus far, you've exibited neither trait, and I will not continue to engage myself in such ridiculousness,

When you bother to support your statements, it's possible you might have a point. Until then, you've done nothing more than attempt to declare that you are right because you say so. That's circular reasoning.

I'd assume that if, at some time, you had any formal debate training, you'd not commit so many fallacies, or at least be able to know to avoid making claims that you will not, or cannot support. Especially considering that formal debates are explicitly for supporting your claims, not just making claims into absurdity.

[Dlachance]

None of your above replies make sense, especially the liberal oe, sine I did not call you a liberal. I stated that the arguement you are making sounds a lot like a liberals.

There is no discussion with you. Also, I resent your tone and arrogant insults against my "beliefs". Our culture is based upon them.

When you want to have a discussion that is intelligent and respectful, I am all ears. Thus far, you've exibited neither trait, and I will not continue to engage myself in such ridiculousness,

[Maddhattter]

As you can see from the bottom of my post, your reply was more than expected. The thing is, According to my religion, God can defy the logic and reasoning of humans.

If something can defy logic and reason, there is no reason to believe in it at all. Nothing you can say about something that defies logic and reason can be relied upon, as it would be different the next moment. Not only would believing in something that defies logic and reason be, by definition, unreasonable, it would be outright stupid because it would be impossible to know anything about it, let alone whether it exists.

Example:
If your deity does not adhere to logic and reason, then it would be both existing and non-existing. Unfortunately, the two things are mutually exclusive. That means that nothing can be both, or you'd have to concede that all gnostic atheists are correct. This would mean that the spook you speak of cannot exist.

While I can introduce you to logic and reason, I can't fix stupid.

Note: This is not stating that you, as a whole, are stupid. Only that your belief of such a thing as you've described is.

Edit. In essence, an "arguement" with an atheist is useless and posses no benifit to either side.

Incorrect. What is true can be demonstrated to be true, and, once it is demonstrated, would benefit both sides as they would not believe something that is untrue.

An atheist would have to take it upon themselves for them to be able to understand what a believer experiences, because it is greater than what logic and reason will tell you, I know first hand.

But, as you've demonstrated, you don't know what you experienced, you've only asserted that you've experienced it. So, you can't know anything about it. Again, an argument from ignorance.

We could do this all day, lol

Only so long as you maintain your fallacious arguments, as you've provided nothing else to support your assertions.

Off the religious topic- Just an fyi, arguing semantics like this will net you zero, absolutely zero.

Except that what I am stating is as accurate as I can be. In doing so, I am doing everything I can to ensure that we are communicating our messages to each other as reliably and accurately as possible.

Ensuring that both my and his posts are accurate, when we are having a conversation, minimizes the possibility that he will be misunderstood or misrepresented and that he will misunderstand or misrepresent me.

So, it does, in fact, net quite a bit.

You sound much like a lawyer, our current POTUS.

So?

i was on a debate team with a bunch of liberals that argue points just like yourself.

This far, nothing you've done in this discussion supports that you've had any experience with formal debates. In fact, you've not presented anything that could stand on it's own. You've also not demonstrated that I'm a "liberal".

They admittly know that they are arguing nonsense too.

Then you've refuted your own point. Not once have I argued anything that I felt was nonsense.

Maybe you actually think what you are saying is constructive, but it is not.

Constructive? No.

Explanatory? Yes.

You see, the post you quoted was a direct response to a question. I was not trying to convince him, nor anyone else, of anything. My positive claims about his failure to define and quantify his terms are supported by his post.

But I gues I havent defined what I think constructive is, or what nonsense is, or what semantics means, so my point is to incorrect.

This is more evidence to support that you've actually no experience with formal debate, or that you were terrible at it if you had.

Your failure to define your terms would not make your point incorrect. It would make it unsupportable until the words have been defined in the context you are using them. This would allow me to dismiss your statements with no further consideration as they have no usage because you've not actually stated something that can be demonstrated.